Daydreaming?

“Vihaaaan” you hear a loud voice suddenly shaking you and you realize “Ohh my god its mom calling me. But why is she yelling?..Ohh damn its so late and its past lunch time.” You look around and see your history books open in front of you. It dawns upon you that you were on a free mind trip. You look up and find your time table staring at you. Holding your head, you wonder if you’l ever mark that chapter complete on your schedule.

Yes, you realize you were daydreaming and that history chapter you sat down with to complete, will not study itself, you will have to study it.

You are not alone. This is for all of us who begin with our purest intention to complete tasks and before we know it, we are daydreaming. Before we realize its too late, we've lost something precious called Time. 

While research has found the benefits of daydreaming to boost creativity, motivation and emotional intelligence it also has disadvantages if done more than often. It can cause you to loose focus and forget important information. If you are studying or trying to complete an important task, daydreaming can interfere with your productivity and cause you to either slow down or stop completely for a matter of minutes. This often hampers you in meeting with timelines set for your study schedule leaving you feeling helpless and irritated at yourself.

 

 

Follow these quick tips to counter daydreaming

Set an Alarm: When you sit to study, sit with your alarm beside. If you know you typically take off mentally in 15 minutes, set an alarm for 20 mins. Begin with studies. Your alarm will ring in 20 minutes, at this point you are reminded that you need to redirect attention and focus. Reset the alarm again for 20 -30 mins for another reminder. Repeat this till you don’t need the alarm.

Keep all Triggers out of Sight: If you think certain things around you can distract you, keep them away while you’re studying. for eg: music,certain books,phones etc

Take Short Breaks: Take short 10 minute breaks after 50 minutes of study, this will automatically relax the brain and prevent you from wandering while studying.

Keep Negativity Away: Most often you would wander off thinking about something bad that happened to you. You cultivate more to that emotion by visualizing the people and situations. Clear the mind of these thoughts and emotions by directly tackling the issue before you sit to study.

Save your Thoughts: If you think you have too many thoughts that you just have to deal with and its important, save them. Imagine you’ve got a box, put these important thoughts, ideas in the box and tell yourself you will look at it later. This will help you focus on what you’ve taken up currently.